...It
will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into
the state, and thus save the expense of supplying, by importation of
white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices
entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of
the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real
distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will
divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably
never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race. - To
these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are
physical and moral.

The
first difference which strikes us is that of colour. - Whether the black
of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and
scarf-skin,or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the
colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other
secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its
seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no
importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of
beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the
expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in
the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the
countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers all the emotions
of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry
of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their
preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan
for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of
Superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our
horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?
Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical
distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the
face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands
of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.

This
greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and
less so of cold than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure
in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has
discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have
disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of
that fluid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part
with more of it. They seem to require less sleep. A black after hard
labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to
sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the
first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more
adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought,
which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present..- When present,
they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the
whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with
them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of
sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless
afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to
us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them.

In
general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than
reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when
abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal
whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to
sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason,
and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the
whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found
capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and
that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be
unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation.

We
will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where
the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It
will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition,
of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many
millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them
indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own
society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed
themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought
up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been
associated with the whites.

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In
general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than
reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when
abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal
whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to
sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason,
and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the
whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found
capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and
that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be
unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation.